Father's Day 2012: The Best Tech for Geeky Dads

Dads want the best on Father’s Day, and they deserve it. But if your father has a taste for the latest and greatest technology, what should you surprise him with? We surveyed the field, rounding up for the hottest tech products we could find. And if you can't afford to buy your dad any of these items, give him the slideshow instead--he'll get a kick out of window-shopping his way through it.

LG LM9600 Cinema 3D Smart TV

The folks at LG have set their sights on bringing the big-screen 3D movie experience to your living room. Their latest offering, the 55-inch LM9600, is enough to make any dad feel the love. Quite possibly the most advance LED television on the market, this beast comes stocked with loads of features sure to make his old TV look like a lump of metal with a screen.

The LM9600 comes with a social center for chatting and using social networking sites while watching TV, wireless screen-share, remote gesture and voice commands, and much more. LG has yet to assign the a price to the LM9600, and we shudder to think of its likely stratospheric level. But this is for Dad, so raiding your trust fund may be in order.

Canon's EOS Rebel T4i, the latest in the company's line of "super Rebel" cameras, may be the most powerful nonprofessional digital SLR available. Features include an upgraded image processor, extended ISO range (100 to 12800), a 3-inch touchscreen LCD monitor, and enhanced 1080p HD video and audio tools to give Pater the power to produce the best-looking photos and videos on the block.

The Toshiba Excite 13 is a powerhouse tablet. It performs well, of course, but but it's also a monster, at 13.5 by 8.3 by 0.4 inches, and 2.2 pounds. The Excite 13 uses the available screen real estate to provide an immersive visual experience. It also boasts a quad-core NVidia Tegra 3 processor, making it ideal for gaming. This is the right-size slate for Big Daddy.

The Samsung Galaxy S III is one of the most heavily hyped smartphones in recent memory--and for good reason. Samsung packs loads of user-friendly features into the Glaxy S III's sleek, minimalistic design; one of them, S Beam, lets two Galaxy S III users transfer media by placing their phones back-to-back.

Another plus: Dad won't have to pause his HD videos to send email or texts, thanks to Pop Up Play, which keeps media playing in a minimized, movable window.

Apple amped up the already impressive MacBook Pro with Retina display, and its 5.1 million attendant pixels, making this laptop one of the summer's most sought after tech items. This sexy machine is also thinner (just 0.71 inch thick) and lighter (4.46 pounds) than its predecessor. Basically it's a 2012 Liquid Silver Metallic Mazda MX-5 Miata convertible for dads who prefer laptops to roadsters.

What geeky dad wouldn't want a personal robotic assistant that sits on his desk and helps him stay on top of the daily turmoil of digital life? The Karotz Smart Rabbit claims to be the "first intelligent internet companion," to connect you to everything the Internet has to offer. Among its talents: Alerting you by voice to email, Facebook, and Twitter updates; emailing you when your kids get home, and playing music via the Internet or MP3 files. Let's see Harvey do that.

Can’t wait until after Father's Day to buy dad a smartphone? Then forget the Samsung Galaxy S III, and check out the HTC One S, currently available for T-Mobile customers. This powerful phone comes configured with a high-end camera and built-in Beats audio, making it an ideal smartphone for fathers who enjoy multimedia and games.

The Samsung 55-inch Class LED 8000 Series Smart TV is a television that really wants to be a computer. It carries a full Web browser, a dual-core processor, a growing Samsung-specific app library, built-in Wi-Fi, three USB 2.0 ports and even a QWERTY keyboard remote control. If you've already committed to buying the LG LM9600 Cinema 3D Smart TV for dad's home theater room (aka the Dad Cave), why not put this set in his home office?

If your dad is a gamer, he's probably well aware of Max Payne 3, the latest title from Rockstar Games. The player controls the eponymous character, a fearless firebrand known for doing things like diving through windows and shooting guns while flying through the air--standard head-of-household stuff. Plus he may even dress like your dad.

The Western Digital My Net N900 Router is perfect for a dad who is blessed with lots of electronic toys in his rec room. The router's seven-port switch will enable him to connect more devices than ever, and a built-in fan will help keep things cool inside that crowded entertainment center.

Barnes & Noble’s Nook Simple Touch With GlowLight, the latest offering in the ongoing development of e-ink screens, claims to "end the bedtime reading debate" that occurs when dad wants to read in bed and mom wants to sleep.

Using small LED lights above the display, this Nook's screen lights up just enough to enable dad to read as late as he wants without causing mom to toss and turn through that recurring dream with the radiant panels.

If you're looking to please a techie dad but your working with a less generous budget than we've heretofore imagined, you'll be happy to know that the Asus Transformer Pad TF300 packs premium performance into a relatively affordable tablet. Like the Transformer Prime TF201, its high-performance cousin, the TF300 runs on a Tegra 3 processor and has a keyboard dock that effectively transforms the tablet into a netbook computer.

If your dad moonlights as a body builder or triathlete after spending his days crunching code, he'll love the Withings Wi-Fi scale. Billed as the first Internet-enabled scale, it tracks the user's body mass and weight loss or gain on a personal Web page. Results on a graph or tab, and families with prolific parents will benefit from the scale's ability to automatically recognizes up to eight users based on their weight.

Transport your Trekky dad's home or office to the 23rdcentury with this Star Trek Electronic Door Chime. Mounted on a wall by a door, the device alerts the occupant with an Enterprise door "swoosh" or "red alert" sound when someone crosses the threshold. With the door chime taken care of, all he'll need is a Moog Music Etherwave Theremin so he can reproduce the original Star Trek theme music.